The third time’s the charm for No News Barred as I head into my third week on the beat. This week was almost exclusively focused on the UFC. Let’s see what happened in MMA from 4/15-4/21.
UFC Branches Out:
This past week at pre UFC 97 press conferences Dana White announced his plans to expand into three very desirable markets. White expects legislation to pass soon, legalizing MMA in New York, Massachusetts, and Toronto. Massachusetts appears much closer to legalizing the sport than the other two.
In fact White has already targeted a month to ship up to Boston (thank you Dropkick Murpheys). He plans on putting on a show in his native Boston in November. Naturally with team sityodtong based out of the Boston area Kenny Florian and his cohorts would be the prime attraction. If Kenny can grab the belt from BJ, Kenny may even be the headliner on the November card.
Also on White’s radar is New York City and Toronto. New York and specifically Madison Square Garden (“the world’s most famous arena”) has been White’s promised land for years now. However, legislation legalizing MMA always seems to get shot down at the last minute by a small but very vocal minority combined with apathy and ignorance amongst the other legislators.
The UFC has turned up the heat with lobbyists, special endorsers like NY native Matt Serra, and even Marc Ratner (UFC’s VP of regulatory affairs) has made it his mission to legalize the sport within NY. The UFC hopes to be there by sometime in 2010.
Toronto is also on the horizon for the UFC. While Toronto does not have the cache of Boston or NYC White is adamant about branching out in Canada after resounding success in Montreal the past two years. Toronto is a good sports town and would probably be a soft landing spot for the UFC in the great white north.
Shake ups and clearances for future UFC cards:
Brock Larson’s fight with Chris Wilson at UFC 98 was made official this week. Larson will make his second appearance since returning to the UFC after a successful stint in the WEC. He will replace the injured Josh Koscheck
Due to Koscheck pulling out James Irvin v. Drew McFedries was moved to the main card on UFC 98. Irvin oddly enough is moving down to MW to take this fight after being KO’d by Anderson Silva at LHW.
Mark Coleman was given a special one fight license this week for his fight at UFC 100 against Stephan Bonnar. Coleman was examined thoroughly by doctors and the NSAC to ensure that he can still safely compete. Coleman’s fight with Bonnar was signed but this clearance should make all systems go for both fighters.
Mark Munoz moves down to MW at UFC 102 to take on Nick Catone. Munoz moves down after being brutally KO’d via leg kick from Matt Hamill in his last fight. Another LHW moving down to MW is quickly clogging up what used to be the UFC’s most shallow divisions.
Wanderlei responds to Anderson Sivla’s tough words:
After Anderson called Wanderlei’s move down to MW (technically his next fight is at 195 but it’s a transition to MW) pretentious Wand had some strong words for Anderson as well.
Wand believes he’s already gotten under Anderson’s skin. He went on to defend his move down saying that he never expected to face the champion right away because that would be pretentious. He expects to have to earn his title shot like anyone else.
Wand also declared war on Anderson saying that “He is too cocky” and “the way is open” to Anderson’s title. Wanderlei is looking forward to facing Anderson in the cage in the near future… aren’t we all.
UFC 97:
The major results this past Saturday at UFC 97 revolved less around the action in the cage itself and more on the the aftermath outside of it. Anderson Silva, widely criticized for his lack of agressiveness Saturday night, retained his title against Thales Leites winning a unanimous decision.
Silva broke the UFC consecutive win record with his ninth victory. He also tied the record for consecutive title defenses with his fifth. However, some are speculating that there is dissention in the Silva camp over his desire to box and the UFC putting the hammer down on that. People are even insinuating that may be why we haven’t seen the old Sivla in his last two fights.
By passive aggressively putting on lackluster shows the UFC would be more inclined to let him leave after his contract is up. Obviously Silva’s camp denies any such rumors. However, the UFC is looking to counterstrike by keeping Anderson even busier and are already thinking up who he could fight next at 205 or possibly even a super fight between Silva and Georges St. Pierre (assuming GSP win his fight against Thiago Alves at UFC 100).
Also, Chuck Liddell may have had his last fight ever on Saturday. The 39 year old MMA poster boy dropped his 4th fight in five tries three of which have come by KO or TKO. Chuck’s retirment is not official but Dana publicly stated that he doesn’t want Liddell back in the UFC fighting.
It will be interesting to see what Chuck does from here. Will he be stubborn and force his way out of the UFC for another promotion that wants him to fight? Or will he be happy to stay under the UFC’s wing in a non fighting role?
Non UFC News:
Unbelievably there was something that happened outside the UFC this week. At Kingdom MMA’s debut show in Hawaii Jason “Mayhem” Miller defeated local icon Kala Hose for the Kingdom MW championship. After losing almost a year ago at DREAM 4 Miller had gone into a semi retirement.
He had picked up a regular writing gig at Fight! magazine as well as being the host of an MTV show. However, fighting obviously has not left his blood as 10 months later he was back in the cage and winningin style picking up the victory by rear naked choke in the first round.
That’ll do it for this week. Stay tuned for No News Barred next Wednsday for the latest and greatest in MMA. Until then,
Enjoy the fights!
